Patent Issued for Method and system for monitoring a network resource (USPTO 11356332): Cybercube Analytics Inc.

2022 JUN 27 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Technology Business Daily -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Al Boni, Mohammad (San Francisco, CA, US), Birapaneni, Sudhakar (San Francisco, CA, US), Gadiyaram, Ramya (San Francisco, CA, US), Garg, Ajay (San Francisco, CA, US), Metzger, Harry (San Francisco, CA, US), Millaire, Pascal (San Francisco, CA, US), filed on May 4, 2020, was published online on June 7, 2022.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11356332, is Cybercube Analytics Inc. (San Francisco, California, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “As more and more of our lives, both personally and commercially, depend on information technology and the internet, we have become increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks and increasingly aware of cyber risk. Indeed, between 2013 and 2020, cyber risk catapulted from being the #15 most important risk for enterprise insurance buyers to the #1 most important risk for enterprise insurance buyers. Cyber risk has now surpassed the traditional property risks such as losses from building fires or mass losses from natural catastrophic events.

“However, whilst cyber-risk is now acknowledged as being a priority, it still does not make it any easier to identify whether interruption to a business is due to the cloud services (or other computer systems) they are utilising or some other problem within that business.

“As an example, if we take the insurance market, in order to provide about 100 times the capital available in the reinsurance market for such events, insurance linked securities could provide to cover business interruption due to the downtime of critical internet infrastructure through access to the capital markets. Insurance linked securities provide a way for companies to buy protection against the risk of incurring a loss as a result of a catastrophic event. However, there is no available solution to provide robust, auditable, reliable measurement of downtime, i.e. inactive or non-operational or a failure state, of cloud infrastructure providers, where downtime could be measured by the amount of time the resources provided are not functioning. Turning to the example of the insurance market again, such measurements could be used to create a parametric insurance-linked security for capital markets participants. Capital markets participants, such as, for example, organisations who sell the protection offered by insurance linked securities would need a technological solution with a high degree of confidence in in order to deploy hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of capital behind such a measure that is not reliant on existing cloud or service provider systems, such as technology vendors (e.g., AWS, Microsoft Azure) that provide Software as a Service (SaaS) and/or Platform as a Service (PaaS) and/or Functionality as a Service (FaaS) etc. to collect measurement information for which one would need to measure failure. This necessitates new processes and technologies for monitoring network resources.

“Current monitoring techniques rely on the uptime statistics provided by the vendor themselves, which created perverse incentives for them inaccurately report downtime. Alternatively, a third party monitoring service may be to prove uptime, i.e. the availability or operation of a given resource. However the measurement errors in such a use case are insufficient. The level of specificity and the confidence required to make such a measurement for capital markets providers requires unique processes and applications of technology not undertaken to-date.

“Currently, in order to assess availability of a cloud based service, existing techniques include (i) infrastructure monitoring, (ii) natural catastrophe parametric triggers or (iii) index based measures, which may be specific to an application such as cyber insurance linked securities or the like.

“Infrastructure monitoring tools check user and vendor defined metrics of a service to determine the availability of that service. Typically, these include passive checks (ping, traceroutes, port monitoring, etc), alerting mechanisms (email, phone, chat), and historical data.

“For natural catastrophes, third party services may be used to monitor natural events that can cause losses, i.e. natural catastrophe parametric triggers. For example, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. Using Richter scale measurements, this provides for an object source that can be used by for example capital markets and reinsurers to create insurance catastrophe bonds, in a way that is not available to the cyber space.

“Where index-based securities are deployed, indices rely on the self-reporting of losses. The challenge with this method is that it is unreliable. In practice, this means that for the insurance industry it can take several years until all claims are submitted from a cyber event and therefore a cyber insurance linked security can be paid out.

“Aspects and embodiments were conceived with the foregoing in mind”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Viewed from a first aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented method of determining the likelihood of a fault in a service provided by a network provider. The network provider may be a computer-implemented resource that provides a plurality of types of network functionality using a plurality of network resources. The method of the first aspect comprises the steps of, for each network resource providing a designated type of functionality: assigning a plurality of agents to monitor the designated type of functionality, wherein each agent is configured to determine a measurement indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by the resource. The method includes combining the measurement determined by each agent to determine a first performance score, wherein the first performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality provided by the respective network resource. Then, for each type of functionality, the method of the first aspect further includes the step of combining the first performance score with the respective first performance score determined for each of the other network resources also providing the designated type of functionality. The method then uses the combination of the first performance scores to determine a second performance score, wherein the second performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by the network provider. Each of the second performance scores are then used to determine a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider. The third performance score is used to indicate the likelihood of fault in the service provided by the network provider. Viewed from a second aspect, there is provided a system configured to determine the likelihood of a fault in a service provided by a network provider which may provide a plurality of types of network functionality using a plurality of network resources. The system comprising: a plurality of agents configured to monitor a designated type of functionality out of the plurality of types of network functionality. Each agent is configured to determine a measurement indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by a network resource. The system further comprises a resource tracker corresponding to each agent in the plurality of agents, the resource tracker configured to combine the measurement determined by each agent to determine a first performance score, wherein the first performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by the respective network resource. The system configured to, for each type of functionality, combine the first performance score with the respective first performance score determined for each of the other network resources also providing the designated type of functionality, wherein each performance score is assigned a weighting. The system then uses the weighted combination of the first performance scores to determine a second performance score, wherein the second performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by the network provider; wherein the system is further configured to use each of the second performance to determine a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider. The system then uses the third performance score to indicate the likelihood of fault in the service provided by the network provider.

“A method and/or system in accordance with the first and second aspects advantageously enables the likely occurrence of a fault in the functionality provided by a network provider to be determined. The method utilises a plurality of agents to monitor a type of functionality associated with a network provider by monitoring a network resource, e.g. a server, to determine how well it is performing the functionality.

“The use of a plurality of agents to monitor a type of functionality means that the system and/or method in accordance with the first and second aspects enables the functionality provided by a network provider to be accurately monitored and faults to be precisely identified. This is because the readings taken by each agent can be advantageously stored and used to trace back any faults which may have caused a network services provider to have undergone downtime.

“Advantageously, in using a plurality of agents, the measurements relating to each the type of functionality are more reliable, auditable and objective. This also increase the integrity of the assessment of the functionality of the network resource if a fault does occur. This is because using a plurality of agents to measure the same type of functionality provides a higher likelihood that the resulting measurement is statistically reliable as a measurement provided by one agent could be down to noise, network faults and other obstacles whereas the same measurement taken by two or more distinct agents is not likely to be subject to the same statistical uncertainty.

“That is to say, a method, system or device in accordance with the first and/or second aspect provides an indicator of the performance of the network which is more reliable as the measurements can be used to isolate the specific source of the downtime of a network service provider and the measurements are not polluted by “noise” which can result from network failures, infrastructure failures and hardware failures.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method of determining a likelihood of a fault in a service provided by a network provider which provides a plurality of types of network functionality using a plurality of network resources, the method comprising: for each network resource providing a designated type of functionality: assigning a plurality of agents to monitor the designated type of functionality, wherein each agent is configured to determine a measurement indicative of a performance of the type of functionality by the each network resource, wherein each measurement is assigned a weighting determined by an operational significance of the agent, and wherein the operational significance is determined according to a combination of a location of the each agent and an importance of a function provided by the resource monitored by a respective agent; and combining the measurement determined by each agent to determine a first performance score, wherein the first performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality provided by a respective network resource; for each type of functionality: combining the first performance score with a respective first performance score determined for each of an other network resources providing the designated type of functionality; and using the combination of the first performance scores to determine a second performance score, wherein the second performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality provided by the network provider, wherein each of the second performance scores are used to determine a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider; and using the third performance score to indicate the likelihood of the fault in the service provided by the network provider.

“2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the operational significance of the agent is at least one of: determined by the location of the agent; and is based on a geographic location.

“3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of agents comprises an internal agent and an external agent, and wherein the internal agent is physically located at the network resource and the external agent is located remotely relative to the network resource.

“4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the internal agent and external agent are independent of the network resource.

“5. A method according to claim 1, wherein using the second performance scores to determine a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider comprises: determining a second performance score for a designated type of functionality; comparing the second performance score with a monitoring threshold for the designated type of functionality; and based on the comparison, outputting a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider.

“6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the designated type of functionality is infrastructure.

“7. A method according to claim 1, wherein the measurement indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by the resource is repeated after an expiry of a time interval.

“8. A method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of following is satisfied: the network provider is a cloud service provider; and the plurality of types of functionality are selected from cloud network, cloud infrastructure and cloud service.

“9. A method according to claim 1, wherein an agent of the plurality of agents and an other agent of the plurality of agents, monitoring a same functionality as the agent of the plurality of agents, are weighted differently.

“10. A method according to claim 9, wherein the agent of the plurality of agents is physically located inside the network resource and the other agent of the plurality of agents is located remotely relative to the network resource.

“11. A system configured to determine a likelihood of a fault in a service provided by a network provider which provides a plurality of types of network functionality using a plurality of network resources, the system comprising: a plurality of agents configured to monitor a designated type of functionality out of the plurality of types of network functionality, wherein each agent is configured to determine a measurement indicative of a performance of the type of functionality by a network resource, wherein each measurement is assigned a weighting determined by and operational significance of the agent, and wherein the operational significance is determined according to a combination of a location of the each agent and an importance of a function provided by the network resource monitored by a respective agent; and a resource tracker corresponding to each agent in the plurality of agents, the resource tracker configured to combine the measurement determined by each agent to determine a first performance score, wherein the first performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality a the respective network resource, wherein the system is configured to, for each type of functionality, combine the first performance score with a respective first performance score determined for each of an other network resources providing the designated type of functionality, wherein each performance score is assigned a weighting determined by the operational significance of the type of functionality, and use the weighted combination of the first performance scores to determine a second performance score, wherein the second performance score is indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by the network provider, and wherein the system is further configured to use each of the second performance to determine a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider, and to use the third performance score to indicate the likelihood of fault in the service provided by the network provider.

“12. A system according to claim 11, wherein the operational significance is at least one of: determined by the location of the agent; and is based on a geographic location.

“13. A system according to claim 11, wherein the plurality of agents comprises an internal agent and an external agent, and wherein the internal agent is physically located at the network resource and the external agent is located remotely relative to the network resource.

“14. A system according to claim 13, wherein the internal agent and external agent are independent of the network resource.

“15. A system according to claim 11, wherein using the second performance scores to determine a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider comprises: determining a second performance score for a designated type of functionality; comparing the second performance score with a monitoring threshold for the designated type of functionality; and based on the comparison, outputting a third performance score indicative of the performance of the network provider.

“16. A system according to claim 15, wherein the designated type of functionality is infrastructure.

“17. A system according to claim 11, wherein the measurement indicative of the performance of the type of functionality by the resource is repeated after an expiry of a time interval.

“18. A system according to claim 11, wherein at least one of following is satisfied: the network provider is a cloud service provider; and the plurality of types of functionality are selected from cloud network, cloud infrastructure and cloud service.”

For more information, see this patent: Al Boni, Mohammad. Method and system for monitoring a network resource. U.S. Patent Number 11356332, filed May 4, 2020, and published online on June 7, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11356332.PN.&OS=PN/11356332RS=PN/11356332

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